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Fifty Years of Kidney Transplants at Mayo Clinic

Fifty years ago, the prognosis for a patient with kidney failure was threatening to grim.

Transplants of kidneys from one person to another were not mainstream medicine. In fact, a transplant was so extraordinary that TIME magazine described the treatment as â€śthe most daring of all.â€ť

Kidney transplants still are serious operations today. But, since Mayo Clinicâ€™s first transplant in 1963, the surgeries have become accepted medical practice. In many cases, transplantation now is the treatment of choice for patients whose kidneys are failing. It often is preferred over chronic â€śhemodialysis,â€ť which relies on an artificial kidney outside the patientâ€™s body to filter the blood and prolong life.

Mayo transplant teams have used advances in surgical techniques, drugs that suppress rejection and, of course, experience with thousands of patients to change a â€śdaringâ€ť operation into a safe procedure.

Today at Mayo Clinic, a kidney transplant patient has a 98 percent chance of surviving one year; furthermore, the chance of surviving 10 years is in the mid-70 percent range. Continued progress in the field is accelerating the survival rate.